Northeast blackout of 2003
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The Northeast blackout of 2003 was a widespread power outage throughout parts of the Northeastern and Midwestern United States, and most parts of the Canadian province of Ontario on Thursday, August 1
A streetcar left stranded by the blackout in Toronto
People walking across the Queensboro Bridge in New York City during the blackout
Toronto, on the evening of 14 August 2003
Volunteers, like Toronto lawyer Peter Carayiannis (pictured), received fluorescent jackets from the police to direct traffic in Toronto during the blackout. Traffic lights also went out of service.
Software bug
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A software bug is a defect in computer software. A computer program with many or serious bugs may be described as buggy.
Northeast blackout of 2003
…55 million people, including 10 million people in southern and central Ontario and 45 million people in eight U.S. states. The blackout was due to a software bug in the alarm system at the control room of FirstEnergy, which rendered operators unaware of the need to redistribute load after overloaded transmission…
A page from the Harvard Mark II electromechanical computer's log, featuring a dead moth that was removed from the device
Error resulting from a software bug displayed on two screens at La Croix de Berny station in France